What do they say?

The scrolls include fragments from every book of the Old Testament except the Book of Esther

Along with biblical texts, the scrolls include documents about sectarian regulations and religious writings that do not appear in the Old Testament.

Oddly, they also include a guide to hidden treasure. The Copper Scroll over 60 hiding places around Israel that have been used to stash treasure.

There are now identified 19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies of Deuteronomy and 30 copies of the Psalms among the scrolls.

Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

No one knows for sure but experts believe they were most likely written by the Essenes during the period from about 200 BC to 68 AD.
The Essenes were an ancient Jewish sect from the 2nd Century BC until the 2nd Century AD in Palestine.

How were the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered?

In 1947, teenage shepherds were tending to their flock near the ancient settlement of Qumran, located on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in what is now known as the West Bank.

One of the boys tossed a rock and heard a shattering sound. He entered the cave and found a large collection of clay jars – seven containing leather and papyrus scrolls.

An antiques dealer bought the scrolls, but they ended up with scholars who estimated the texts were over 2,000 years old.

After the first discovery, treasure hunters and archaeologists unearthed tens of thousands of fragments from ten nearby caves – making up more than 900 manuscripts.

Who were the men buried in the West Bank and did they write the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Newly-excavated skeletons at a 2,000-year-old site in the West Bank could reveal who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Anthropologist Yossi Nagar, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said analysis of 33 skeletons buried at Qumran were in line with a theory that the community consisted of a religious sect of men.

Previously, it has been claimed a community of celibate men lived at Qumran.

And 30 of the skeletons, excavated in 2016, were definitely or most likely males, aged between 20 and 50 – or possibly older – when they died.

The skeletons are thought to be approximately 2,200 years old, according to radiocarbon dating, which is around the same age as the scrolls.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Yossi said: “I don’t know if these were the people who produced the Qumran region’s Dead Sea Scrolls.

“But the high concentration of adult males of various ages buried at Qumran is similar to what has been found at cemeteries connected to Byzantine monasteries.”

Yossi said six of seven previously unearthed bodies initially thought to be women were actually men.